A Canadian View on the US: Testing 123 – Trump Proclaims He Aced the Test!

[AdSense-A]

By Jo-Ann “Jo D NL” Duke

Hi, it’s me again, your friendly Canadian observer, back again. For the past few weeks Donald Trump has been telling everyone who will listen about how he did so amazingly well on the cognitive test he did some time ago. He keeps saying that he doesn’t think that Joe Biden or Chris Wallace, the reporter who interviewed or as I like to call it, “massacred” him last Sunday, could possibly pass the test, and definitely not do as well as he did.

I will admit that after the past couple of weeks, I am wondering about something else that has been bugging me ever since the news of the test was released; especially when I saw which test he had taken; and he has been talking about the cognitive test since then, and as he put it, he aced the test.

Honestly, I am surprised he keeps emphasizing the fact that the doctors who administered the test were so surprised that he had done so well in completing the test; surely a man whose mind is healthy would have no problem easily taking and completing this test.

The one thing that stands out to me the most is important, I think. My question is why did he take the test in the first place, was it because there was some reason that he had to take it?

Is this the explanation for his seeming inability to concentrate fully on one subject; without continuously jumping from one topic to another without any warning, and back again, as we all saw in his Rose Garden speech of July 14, 2020.

Normally when a person is speaking in public, they do so in a coherent manner and express their thoughts clearly; they also speak about each matter separately to get their information across to the audience.

I can say that this was not what happened and was not the end result of the speech that Trump gave the day as he announced his latest Executive Orders, well, at that point.

The reason I am curious is because the test that has been released and identified as the one he took is actually a test used after an accident, when they use it to make sure the patient is aware and oriented as to where they are, and to make sure that they haven’t lost any time.

However, another reason for my interest and anxiety, and this is a big one. The test he keeps talking about acing is the test that is administered to people to see if they are beginning to be affected by forms of dementia, because it helps the specialists determine if the patient is developing Alzheimer’s disease. The doctor can see by their ability and the length of time they require to complete it if they do indeed have this horrible disease; as well, this information gives the doctor an indication of how far they have progressed in the disease as well.

Is this the reason that the president of the US, Donald J. Trump, was given this test? Do the doctors that he saw when he took this test believe that he may be suffering from the mental impairment that would be signs of Alzheimer’s, or perhaps another form of dementia, such as frontotemporal dementia.

The Mayo Clinic web page explains that frontotemporal dementia is an umbrella term for a group of uncommon brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are generally associated with personality, behavior and language. (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/frontotemporal-dementia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354737.)

In frontotemporal dementia, portions of these lobes shrink or atrophy. Signs and symptoms may vary, depending on which part of the brain is affected. In some people with frontotemporal dementia, they have dramatic changes in their personality and may become socially inappropriate, impulsive or emotionally indifferent, while others lose the ability to use language properly.

Frontotemporal dementia is often misdiagnosed as a psychiatric problem or as Alzheimer’s disease. However, frontotemporal dementia tends to occur at a younger age than Alzheimer’s disease would normally; it often begins between the ages of 40 and 65.

Some symptoms and signs of FTD can vary from one patient to another, and they may get progressively worse over time and may take years for the symptoms to worsen. In patients, clusters of symptom types tend to occur together; and patients may have more than one cluster.

The most common signs of frontotemporal dementia will most likely involve extreme changes in behavior and personality. They may include some of the following changes such as increasingly inappropriate social behavior, a loss of empathy, other interpersonal skills, such as having sensitivity to another’s feelings. They may also include changes that are apparent in judgment being impaired, and losing any sense of inhibition. Also, patients may seem to show a lack of interest or apathy. It can include compulsively repeating behavior; as well as letting personal hygiene slip away from them.

Some may see the patient exhibiting changes in their eating habits such as overeating, or changing their food preferences; or they may begin to eat objects that are not edible. They also may seem to be always wanting to put things in their mouths.

Another change that may be seen is having problems with speech and language, when before they had no such issues; they may have begun to experience impairment when speaking, and even losing the ability to speak.

They may begin to exhibit increasing difficulty in being able to find the right word to use when speaking or even having trouble in naming objects with the correct name; they may begin to substitute words for the ones they cannot name. The patient may no longer know word definitions, and not be able to properly put sentences together, and their speech may be disjointed as they are searching for the correct word, and may not always sound like it normally would.

Another issue of more rare types of frontotemporal dementia are characterized by problems with movement, such as you may see from patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Some of the movement-related issues may include signs such as tremors, rigidity, spasming muscles, coordination problems, weakening muscles, swallowing difficulty, and laughing or crying at inappropriate times. In cases of frontotemporal dementia, the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain shrink; and certain substances may amass in the brain; the reason why is not always known.

Now, obviously, I am not a doctor or a specialist in frontotemporal dementia, but unfortunately over several decades of watching family members develop different types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s, I have seen as they have developed the different behaviors that patients exhibit when their disease begins to progress.

I am not saying that the president has either of these types of dementia, but it is interesting to see that some of the symptoms listed do seem to relate to behavior that he has exhibited since he was elected president. Now obviously, this is just my opinion, but it has made me think, what was the reason for his asking to take the test as he has said. Why did he want to take that particular test, was there something that he needed to find out?

Well, once again I am signing off here from Canada, sincerely wishing all of my American friends the best, those both old and new, and much love to all of you.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]